Inventions in the Century Part 18

In 1814 Joshua Shaw of England invented the percussion cap. Thus, by the invention of the percussion principle by Forsyth, and that little copper cylinder of Shaw, having a flake of fulminating powder inside and adapted to fit the nipple of a gun and be exploded by the fall of the hammer, was sounded the death knell of the old flint-locks with which the greatest battles of the world had been and were at that time being fought. The advantages gained by the cap were the certain and instantaneous fire, the saving in time, power, and powder obtained by making smaller the orifice through which the ignition was introduced, and the protection from moisture given by the covering cap. And yet so slow is the growth of inventions sometimes that all Europe continued to make the flint-locks for many years after the percussion cap was invented; and General Scott, in the war between the United States and Mexico in 1847, declined to give the army the percussion cap musket. The cap suggested the necessity and invention of machines for making them quickly and in great quant.i.ties.

The celebrated "Colt's" revolver was invented by Colonel Samuel Colt of the United States, in 1835. He continued to improve it, and in 1851 exhibited it at the World's Fair, London, where it excited great surprise and attention. Since then the revolver has become a great weapon in both private and public warfare. The next great inventions in small arms were the readoption and improvement of the breech-loader, the making of metallic cartridges, the magazine gun, smokeless powder and other explosives, to which further reference will be made.

To return to cannons:--In 1812 Colonel Bomford, an American officer, invented what is called the "Columbiad," a kind of cannon best adapted for sea-coast purposes. They are long-chambered pieces, combining certain qualities of the gun, howitzer and mortar, and capable of projecting sh.e.l.ls and solid shot with heavy charges of powder at high angles of elevation, and peculiarly adapted to defend narrow channels and sea-coast defences. A similar gun was invented by General Paixhans of the French army in 1822. The adoption of the Paixhans long-chambered guns, designed to throw heavy sh.e.l.ls horizontally as well as at a slight elevation and as easily as solid shot, was attended with great results.

Used by the French in 1832, in the quick victorious siege of Antwerp, by the allies at Sebastopol, where the whole Russian fleet was destroyed in about an hour, and in the fight of the Kearsarge and the doomed Alabama off Cherbourg in the American civil war, it forced inventors in the different countries to devise new and better armour for the defence of ships. This was followed by guns of still greater penetrative power.

Then as another result effected by these greater guns came the pa.s.sing away of the old-fashioned brick and stone forts as a means of defence.

In an interesting address by Major Clarence E. Dutton of the Ordnance Department, U.S.A., at the Centennial Patent Congress at Washington in 1891, he thus stated what the fundamental improvements were that have characterised the modern ordnance during the century:

1. The regulation and control of the action of gunpowder in such a manner as to exert less strain upon the gun, and to impart more energy to the projectile.

2. To so construct the gun as to transfer a portion of the strain from the interior parts of the walls which had borne too much of it, to the exterior parts which had borne too little, thus nearly equalising the strain throughout the entire thickness of the walls.

3. To provide a metal which should be at once stronger and safer than any which had been used before.

In the United States General Rodman, "one of the pioneers of armed science," commenced about 1847 a series of investigations and experiments on the power and action of gunpowder and the strains received by every part of the gun by the exploding gases, of very great importance; and in this matter he was a.s.sisted greatly by Dr. W. E.

Woodbridge, who invented an ingenious apparatus termed a "piezometer,"

or a pressure measurer, by which the pressure of the gases at the various parts of the gun was determined with mathematical certainty.

Dr. Woodbridge also added greatly to the success of rifled cannon. The success in rifling small arms, by which an elongated ball is made to retain the same end foremost during its flight, led again to the attempts of rifling cannon for the same purpose, which were finally successful. But this success was due not to the spiral grooves in the cannon bore, but in attachments to the ball compelling it to follow the course of the grooves and giving it the proper initial movement. The trouble with these attachments was that they were either stripped off, or stripped away, by the gun spirals. Woodbridge in 1850 overcame the difficulty by inventing an improved _sabot_, consisting of a ring composed of metal softer than the projectile or cannon, fixed on the inner end of the projectile and grooved at its rear end, so that when the gun is fired and the ball driven forward these grooves expand, acting valvularly to fill the grooves in the gun, thus preventing the escape of the gases, while the ring at the same time is forced forward on to the sh.e.l.l so tightly and forcibly that the projectile is invariably given a rotary motion and made to advance strictly in the line of axis of the bore, and in the same line during the course of its flight. This invention in principle has been followed ever since, although other forms have been given the sabot, and it is due to this invention that modern rifled cannon have been so wonderfully accurate in range and efficient in the penetrating and destructive power both on sea and land.

Woodbridge also invented the _wire-wound cannon_, and a machine for winding the wire upon the gun, thus giving the breach part, especially, immense strength.

In England, among the first notable and greater inventors in ordnance during the latter half of the century, a period which embraces the reduction to practice of the most wonderful and successful inventions in weapons of war which the world had up to that time seen, are Lancaster, who invented the elliptical bore; Sir William Armstrong, who, commencing in 1885, constructed a gun built of wrought-iron bars twisted into coils and applied over a steel core and bound by one or more wrought-iron rings, all applied at white heat and shrunk on by contraction due to cooling, by which method smooth-bore, muzzle-loading cannon of immense calibre, one weighing one hundred tons, were made. They were followed by Armstrong, inventor of breech-loaders; Blakely, inventor of cannon made of steel tubes and an outer jacket of cast iron; and Sir Joseph Whitworth, inventor of most powerful steel cannon and compressed steel projectiles.

In Germany, Friedrich Krupp at Essen, Prussia, invented and introduced such improvements in breech-loading cannon as revolutionised the manufacture of that species of ordnance, and established the foundation of the greatest ordnance works in the world. The first of his great breech-loading steel guns was exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1867.

A Krupp gun finished at Essen in the 70's was then the largest steel gun the world had ever seen. It weighed seventy-two tons, and was thirty-two feet long. The charge consisted of 385 pounds of powder, the sh.e.l.l weighed 1,660 pounds, having a bursting charge of powder of 22 pounds, and a velocity of 1,640 feet per second. It was estimated that if the gun were fired at an angle of 43 the sh.e.l.l would be carried a distance of fifteen miles. It was in the Krupp guns, and also in the Armstrong breech-loaders, that a simple feature was for the first time introduced which proved of immense importance in giving great additional expansive force to the explosion of the powder. This was an increase in the size of the powder chamber so as to allow a vacant s.p.a.ce in it unfilled with powder.

In the United States, Rodman, commencing in 1847, and Dahlgren in 1850, and Parrott in 1860, invented and introduced some noticeable improvements in cast-iron, smooth-bore, and rifled cannon.

In France General Paixhans and Colonel Treuille de Beaulieu improved the sh.e.l.ls and ordnance.

The latest improvements in cannon indicate that the old smooth-bore muzzle-loader guns are to be entirely superseded by breech-loaders, just as in small arms the muzzle-loading musket has given way to the breech-loading rifle.

A single lever is now employed, a single turn of which will close or open the breech, and when opened expel the sh.e.l.l by the same movement.

Formerly breech-loaders were confined to the heaviest ordnance; now they are a part of the lightest field pieces.

As to the operation of those immense guns above referred to, which const.i.tute princ.i.p.ally sea-coast defences and the heavy armament for forts, gun carriages have been invented whereby the huge guns are quickly raised from behind immense embrasures by pneumatic or hydraulic cylinders, quickly fired (the range having been before accurately ascertained) and then as quickly lowered out of sight, the latter movement being aided by the recoil action of the gun.

It is essential that the full force of the gases of explosion shall be exerted against the base of the projectile, and therefore all escape of such gases be prevented. To this end valuable improvements in _gas checks_ have been made,--one kind consisting of an annular canvas sack containing asbestos and tallow placed between the front face of the breech block and a mushroom-shaped piece, against which the explosion impinges.

As among projectiles and sh.e.l.ls for cannon those have been invented which are loaded with dynamite or other high explosive, a new cla.s.s of _Compressed air ordnance_ has been started, in which air or gas is used for the propelling power in place of powder, whereby the chances of exploding such sh.e.l.ls in the bore of the gun are greatly lessened.

The construction of metals, both for cannon to resist most intense explosives and for plates to resist the penetration of the best projectiles, have received great attention. They are matters pertaining to metallurgy, and are treated of under that head. The strife still continues between impenetrable armour plate and irresistible projectiles. Within the last decade or so sh.e.l.ls have been invented with the design simply to shatter or fracture the plate by which the way is broken for subsequent shots. Other sh.e.l.ls have been invented carrying a high explosive and capable of penetrating armour plates of great thickness, and exploding after such penetration has taken place.

A great accompaniment to artillery is "The Range Finder," a telescopic apparatus for ascertaining accurately the location and distance of objects to be fired at.

Returning to _small arms_,--at the time percussion caps were invented in England, 1803-1814, John H. Hall of the United States invented a breech-loading rifle. It was in substance an ordinary musket cut in two at the breech, with the rear piece connected by a hinge and trunnion to the front piece, the bore of the two pieces being in line when clamped, and the ball and cartridge inserted when the chamber was thrown up. A large number were at once manufactured and used in the U.S. Army. A smaller size, called _carbines_, were used by the mounted troops. After about twenty years' use these guns began to be regarded as dangerous in some respects, and their manufacture and use stopped, although the carbines continued in use to some extent in the cavalry. A breech-loading rifle was also invented by Colonel Pauly of France in 1812, and improved by Dreyse in 1835; also in Norway in 1838, and in a few years adopted by Sweden as superior to all muzzle-loading arms.

About 1841 the celebrated "Needle Gun" was invented in Prussia, and its superiority over all muzzle-loaders was demonstrated in 1848 in the first Schleswig-Holstein war.

_Cartridges_, in which the ball and powder were secured together in one package, were old in artillery, as has been shown, but their use for small arms is a later invention. _Metallic_ cartridges, made of sheet metal with a fulminate cap in one end and a rim on the end of the sh.e.l.l by which it could be extracted after the explosion, were invented by numerous persons in Europe and America during the evolution of the breech-loader. Combined metal case and paper patented in England in 1816, and numerous wholly metallic cartridge sh.e.l.ls were patented in England, France, and United States between 1840 and 1860. M. Lefaucheux of France, in the later period, devised a metal _gas check_ cartridge which was a great advance.

A number of inventors in the United States besides Hall had produced breech-loading small arms before the Civil War of 1861, but with the exception of Colt's revolver and Sharp's carbine, the latter used by the cavalry to a small extent, none were first adopted in that great conflict. Later, the Henry or Winchester breech-loading rifle and the Spencer magazine gun were introduced and did good service. But the whole known system of breech-loading small arms was officially condemned by the U.S. Military authorities previous to that war. The absence of machines to make a suitable cartridge in large quant.i.ties and vast immediate necessities compelled the authorities to ignore the tested Prussian and Swedish breech-loaders and those of their own countrymen and to ransack Europe for muskets of ancient pattern. These were worked by the soldiers under the ancient tactics, of load, ram, charge and fire, until a stray bullet struck the ramrod, or the discharge of a few rammed cartridges so over-heated the musket as to thereby dispense with the soldier and his gun for further service in that field. However, private individuals and companies continued to invent and improve, and the civil war in America revolutionised the systems of warfare and its weapons. The wooden walls of the navies disappeared as a defence after the conflict between the Monitor and the Merrimac, and muzzle-loading muskets became things of the past.

Torpedoes, both stationary and movable, then became a successful weapon of warfare. Soon after that war, and when the United States had adopted the Springfield breech-loading rifle, the works at Springfield were equipped with nearly forty different machines, each for making a separate part of a gun in great quant.i.ties. Many of these had been invented by Thomas Blanchard forty years before. That great inventor of labour-saving machinery had then designed machines for the shaping and making of gun stocks and for forming the accompanying parts. Blanchard was a contemporary of Hall, and Hall, to perfect his breech-loader, was the first to invent machines for making its various parts. His was the first interchangeable system in the making of small arms.

Army officers had come to regard "the gun as only the casket while the cartridge is the jewel;" and to this end J. G. Gill at the U.S. a.r.s.enal at Frankford, Philadelphia, devised a series of cartridge-making machines which ranked among the highest triumphs of American invention.

The single breech-loader is now being succeeded by the magazine gun, by which a supply of cartridges in a chamber is automatically fed into the barrel. The Springfield, has been remodelled as a magazine loader. Among later types of repeating rifles, known from the names of their inventors, are the "Krag-Jorgensen," and the "Mauser," and the crack of these is heard around the world. Modern rifles are rendered more deadly by the fact that they can be loaded and fired in a rec.u.mbent position, and with smokeless powder, by which the soldier and his location remain concealed from his foe.

The recoil of the gun in both large and small arms is now utilised to expel the fired cartridge sh.e.l.l, and to withdraw a fresh one from its magazine and place it in position in the chamber. _Compressed air and explosive gases_ have been used for the same purpose. A small _electric battery_ has been placed in the stock to explode the cartridge when the trigger is pulled.

Sporting guns have kept pace with other small arms in improvements, and among modern forms are those which discharge in alternative succession the two barrels by a single trigger. Revolvers have been improved and the Smith and Wesson is known throughout the world.

The idea of _Machine Guns_, or _Mitrailleuses_, was not a new one, as we have seen from Puckle's celebrated patent of 1718. Also history mentions a gun composed of four breech-loading tubes of small calibre, placed on a two-wheeled cart used in Flanders as early as 1347, and of four-tubed guns used by the Scotch during the civil war in 1644. The machine gun invented by Dr. Gatling of the United States during the Civil War and subsequently perfected, has become a part of the armament of every civilised nation. The object of the gun is to combine in one piece the destructive effect of a great many, and to throw a continuous hail of projectiles. The gun is mounted on a tripod; the cartridges are contained in a hopper mounted on the breech of the gun and are fed from locks into the barrels (which are usually five or ten in number) as the locks and barrels are revolved by a hand crank. As the handle is turned the cartridges are first given a forward motion, which thrusts them into the barrels, closes the breech and fires the cartridges in succession, and then a backward motion which extracts the empty sh.e.l.ls. The gun weighs one hundred pounds and firing may be kept up with a ten-barreled gun at one thousand shots a minute.

The _Hotchkiss_ revolving cannon is another celebrated American production named from its inventor, and constructed to throw heavier projectiles than the Gatling. It also has revolving barrels and great solidity in the breech mechanism. It has been found to be of great service in resisting the attacks of torpedo boats. It is adapted to fire long-range sh.e.l.ls with great rapidity and powerful effect, and is exceedingly efficient in defence of ditches and entrenchments.

_Explosives._--The desire to make the most effective explosives for gunnery led to their invention not only for that purpose but for the more peaceful pursuit of blasting. _Gun Cotton_, that mixture of nitric acid and cotton, made by Schonbein in 1846, and experimented with for a long time as a subst.i.tute for gunpowder in cannon and small arms and finally discarded for that purpose, is now being again revived, but used chiefly for blasting. This was followed by the discovery of nitro-glycerine, a still more powerful explosive agent--too powerful and uncontrollable for guns as originally made. They did not supersede gunpowder, but smokeless powders have come, containing nitro-cellulose, or nitro-glycerine rendered plastic, coherent and h.o.m.ogeneous, and converted into rods or grains of free running powder, to aid the breech-loaders and magazine guns, while the high explosives, gun-cotton, nitro-glycerine, dynamite, dualine, etc., have become the favorite agencies for those fearful offensive and defensive weapons, the _Torpedoes_. From about the time of the discovery of gunpowder, stationary and floating chambers and mines of powder, to be discharged in early times by fuses (later by percussion or electricity), have existed, but modern inventions have rendered them of more fearful importance than was ever dreamed of before this century. The latest invention in this cla.s.s is the _submarine torpedo boat_, which, moving rapidly towards an enemy's vessel, suddenly disappears from sight beneath the water, and strikes the vessel at its lowest or most vulnerable point.

To the inquiry as to whether all this vast array of modern implements of destruction is to lessen the destruction of human life, shorten war, mitigate its horrors and tend toward peace, there can be but one answer.

All these desirable results have been accomplished whenever the new inventions of importance have been used. "Warlike Tribes" have been put to flight so easily by civilised armies in modern times that such tribes have been doubted as possessing their boasted or even natural courage.

Nations with a glorious past as to bravery but with a poor armament have gone down suddenly before smaller forces armed with modern ordnance. The results would have been reversed, and the derision would have proceeded from the other side, if the conditions had been reversed, and those tribes and brave peoples been armed with the best weapons and the knowledge of their use. The courage of the majority of men on the battle-field is begot of confidence and enthusiasm, but this confidence and enthusiasm, however great the cause, soon fail, and discretion becomes the better part of valour, if men find that their weapons are weak and useless against vastly superior arms of the enemy. The slaughter and destruction in a few hours with modern weapons may not be more terrible than could be inflicted with the old arms by far greater forces at close quarters in a greater length of time in the past, but the end comes sooner; and the prolongation of the struggle with renewed sacrifices of life, and the long continued and exhausting campaigns, giving rise to diseases more destructive than shot or sh.e.l.l, are thereby greatly lessened, if not altogether avoided.

CHAPTER XVII.

PAPER AND PRINTING.

_Paper-making._--"The art preservative of all arts"--itself must have means of preservation, and hence the art of paper-making precedes the art of printing.

It was Pliny who wrote, at the beginning of the Christian era, that "All the usages of civilised life depend in a remarkable degree upon the employment of paper. At all events the remembrance of past events."

Naturally to the Chinese, the Hindoo, and the Egyptian, we go with inquiries as to origin, and find that as to both arts they were making the most delicate paper from wood and vegetable fibres and printing with great nicety, long before Europeans had even learned to use papyrus or parchment, or had conceived the idea of type.

So far as we know the wasp alone preceded the ancient Orientals in the making of paper. Its gray shingled house made in layers, worked up into paper by a master hand from decayed wood, pulped, and glutinised, waterproofed, with internal tiers of chambers, a fortress, a home, and an airy habitation, is still beyond the power of human invention to reproduce.

Papyrus--the paper of the Egyptians: Not only their paper, but its pith one of their articles of food, and its outer portions material for paper, boxes, baskets, boats, mats, medicines, cloths and other articles of merchandise.

Once one of the fruits of the Nile, now no longer growing there. On its fragile leaves were recorded and preserved the ancient literatures--the records of dynasties--the songs of the Hebrew prophets--the early annals of Greece and Rome--the vast, lost tomes of Alexandria. Those which were fortunately preserved and transferred to more enduring forms now const.i.tute the greater part of all we have of the writings of those departed ages.

In making paper from papyrus, the inner portion next to the pith was separated into thin leaves; these were laid in two or more layers, moistened and pressed together to form a leaf; two or more leaves united at their edges if desired, or end to end, beaten smooth with a mallet, polished with a piece of iron or sh.e.l.l, the ends, or sides, or both, of the sheet sometimes neatly ornamented, and then rolled on a wooden cylinder. The Romans and other ancient nations imported most of their papyrus from Egypt, although raising it to considerable extent in their own swamps.

In the seventh century, the Saracens conquered Egypt and carried back therefrom, papyrus, and the knowledge of how to make paper from it to Europe.